2004
—
Breaking News Reporting

Mountain Resorts Under Siege

Firefighters battled desperately Wednesday to stop wildfires
from destroying two beloved Southern California getaways, Lake Arrowhead and the
historic mountain town of Julian, east of San Diego. One firefighter was killed,
bringing the death toll to 20 after five days of the fires, which are now the
largest in modern California history.

While there was progress in taming
some of the 10 fires that have engulfed a broad arc of the region from Ventura
County into Mexico, the blazes in the San Bernardino and Cleveland national
forests continued to bedevil an exhausted army of firefighters.

By
evening, crewshad managed to keep the infernos from overtaking Julian, an old
gold mining town some 40 miles from San Diego, and much of Lake Arrowhead, the
century-old resort on a man-made lake in the San Bernardino
Mountains.

LAKE ARROWHEAD: Flames consume a neighborhood in the Cedar Glen area of Lake Arrowhead. The Southern California wildfires have claimed 20 lives, destroyed 2,605 homes and burned more than 675,000 acres, the largest toll in modern state history. (Photo: Richard Hartog/Los Angeles Times)

Still, about 350 houses were destroyed on the east side of
Arrowhead, and strong winds created dangerous conditions Wednesday night that
forced the evacuation of many firefighters.

Erratic wind gusts, some as
high as 70 mph, sent flames in unexpected directions, not only frustrating
efforts to douse them but sometimes engulfing and endangering fire crews. By
late evening, strong winds were blowing the fire away from Arrowhead -- but
toward another popular destination, Big Bear Lake.

Said Tricia Abbas,
spokeswoman for the U.S. Forest Service in the San Bernardino National Forest:
"I can't decide if I'm on the Titanic, or whether everything is going well and
I'm overreacting."

The National Weather Service predicted continued gusty
winds for today but said the region was also likely to see higher humidity and
might have some rain by the end of the week.

State officials were not yet
predicting when the Old fire, now burning near Lake Arrowhead, would be
contained, but said the Cedar fire, which attacked Julian, would be contained by
the middle of next week.

The battle to save Julian took its human toll
when four firefighters were overrun by flames in their firetruck in the nearby
hamlet of Wynola. One died and the other three were burned, one critically,
authorities said.

Steven L. Rucker, 38, a firefighter and paramedic from
the Marin County town of Novato, died. An 11-year veteran, he is survived by a
wife and two children. The most severely injured firefighter was identified as
Novato Fire Capt. Doug McDonald. He was expected to recover.

"This fire
has been nothing short of apocalyptic," said Janet Marshall, spokeswoman for the
California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

State and local
officials were still counting destroyed homes. The count stood at 2,605, with
estimated losses exceeding $2 billion. Officials said 105,000 people had been
evacuated from their homes at some point since the fires began.

The Cedar
fire, at more than 250,000 acres, is now the largest on record in the state,
surpassing the Matilija fire, which burned 220,000 acres of the Los Padres
National Forest in Ventura County in 1932 but did not destroy any homes or cause
any deaths. Overall, the fires have covered about 675,000 acres, more than twice
the size of the city of Los Angeles.

Besides the firefighter killed
Wednesday, authorities in San Diego County found the body of a person apparently
killed by fire in rural Alpine earlier in the week. Two others were found dead
in the vicinity of the Barona Ranch Indian Reservation south of
Julian.

To the north, firefighters in Ventura and Los Angeles counties
battled fires that ranged over brushland from near the small town of Fillmore to
the Stevenson Ranch subdivision near Santa Clarita. Smoke from the fires forced
the closure, for part of the day, of Interstate 5, the state's main north-south
thoroughfare, near Valencia.

Firefighters in some areas benefited from a
change in weather patterns that allowed cooler, moist marine air into the
region. A low-pressure system moving into the region is expected to bring winds
out of the south and west, which could push smoke away from urban Los Angeles
and San Diego but propel fires farther into the mountain communities around Big
Bear and Lake Arrowhead, weather officials said.

On the tarmac at San
Bernardino International Airport, Gov. Gray Davis urged swift and severe
punishment of the two arsonists believed to have set the Old fire in the San
Bernardino Mountains. The blaze has caused at least four deaths, he
noted.

"I think we should throw the book at them. They not only destroyed
property, they destroyed dreams," Davis said before boarding a National Guard
helicopter to tour the Lake Arrowhead area.

Arson is suspected in four of
the fires plaguing the region, although no arrests have been made. A hunter has
been cited for igniting the Cedar fire near San Diego, but he has not been
accused of arson.

Davis also declared a state of emergency in Riverside
County. He had previously declared emergencies in San Bernardino, Ventura, San
Diego and Los Angeles counties.

The governor, soon to relinquish his
office to Gov.-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger, was reluctant to respond to
criticism that he did not activate firefighting resources, especially air
tankers, quickly enough in San Diego county and elsewhere.

"Let me be
clear," Davis said. "I have marshaled all the resources of the state.... We're
doing everything we can to put the fires out and put people's lives back in
order."

San Diego

In San Diego County, the defense of
Julian came after a disastrous night in which hundreds of homes were destroyed
in the hamlets of Cuyamaca and Pine Hills. Shifting winds kept firefighters
racing from one location to another.

No new structures were reported
burned within San Diego city limits, however, and officials said the western
portion of the Cedar fire, nearest the city, was largely contained.

The
fire jumped a 50-foot-wide break on the south side of Julian on Wednesday
morning, surprising residents who had been told they could return to their homes
in a tree-lined canyon above the tiny town of Santa Ysabel, just north of
Julian.

Residents standing at a nearby checkpoint watched in horror as
the flames climbed a ridge toward their homes in Wynola Estates.

"We
thought we had good news this morning," said Jack Riordan, a painting contractor
who moved to Wynola Estates a few months ago. "We were led to believe we could
go up and see our house, but it doesn't look good now."

Riordan, 25, and
his wife, Marcy, 26, fled their home on Monday in their car with their important
paperwork and wedding photos. They went to stay at her parents' home in Ramona.
Marcy's parents had stayed at their home just days earlier when the fire burned
parts of Ramona.

Their neighbors peered anxiously through
the smoke-filled air toward the ridge.

"Your heart is racing because when
all you see is the smoke you have this false sense of security that 'It's not
going to get me,' " said Barbara Segni, 61. "And then you see the flames, and
it's heart-wrenching. Everything you've worked for is up there and these flames
are racing to take it all away. Right now we don't know if we have a
home."

The tally of houses destroyed by the Cedar and Paradise fires in
San Diego County exceeded 1,700, with damage assessment teams still unable to
visit some scorched, smoldering areas to get a final count.

Even as other
homes were being burned, owners of homes destroyed in the fires' first three
days clamored to begin rebuilding. City and county officials promised to waive
fees and expedite permits.

"There are people out there ready to clear
their land and begin to rebuild," said county Supervisor Dianne Jacob. "We're
going to help every way we can."

Within the San Diego city limits, relief
was mixed with incredulity.

"People are asking 'Why us?' " said Michael
McDade, a lawyer. "But this is a tremendously resilient city. When you hear the
volunteer center say they've got more volunteers than they need, you know you
live in a special place."

Thousands of property owners remained without
electricity because of damaged or destroyed transmission lines. Hospitals
treated many patients with breathing problems because of smoke.

The Navy
resumed normal operations, but schools remained closed. San Diego Mayor Dick
Murphy began planning with religious leaders for an inter-faith service Sunday
to help the community cope with the trauma.

San
Bernardino

For most of the past week, the main expanse of the Old
fire, the name given to the blaze advancing through the San Bernardino National
Forest, was south of Highway 18, the Rim of the World Highway. But Monday night,
firefighters were struggling to beat down patches that had jumped the road. And
before dawn Wednesday, the flames crossed the highway in two places and began a
northward advance.

On the east side, the flames crossed the highway near
Heaps Peak and descended into Hook Creek Canyon. From there, they burned through
the community of Cedar Glen and northeastern Lake Arrowhead, destroying dozens
of homes.

To the west, the
fire skirted Arrowhead, went past Silverwood Lake and headed north toward the
high desert community of Hesperia. Firefighters appeared to have stopped the
flames directly south of the lake, preventing, at least for the time being, an
advance that many had feared would destroy the lakeside resort.

After
taking on the blaze that jumped the highway near Heaps Peak, weary firefighters
were forced to retreat to their vehicles.

"It's been a hell of a
morning," said Dewey Rebbe, part of an elite New Mexico firefighting squad.
"Winds pushed by the fire reached 70 mph."

At Arrowhead, the fire came
within a mile of large estates surrounded by trees that have been killed by a
bark beetles. In midafternoon, U.S. Forest Service spokesman Dennis Cross stood
outside the Mountains Community Hospital, near the eastern shore of the lake,
warily surveying plumes of dark smoke.

"What's also troubling right now
are these erratic winds," he said. By midnight, the hospital was surrounded on
three sides by fire.

Among the victories logged by firefighters was
fighting off the destruction of the 500-acre Las Flores ranch, owned by Kentucky
Derby-winning horse trainer Jack Van Berg. The high desert ranch, located at the
head of the Mojave River in Summit Valley, is home to the oldest standing barn
in Southern California, which was built in 1872. This barn is flanked by a dozen
wooden farm buildings and large stands of cottonwood and plum trees.

Van
Berg said fire closed in on the property Tuesday night, forcing him to retreat
to a concrete powerhouse, where he convinced himself that his ranch was lost.
When he emerged, the property remained intact except for several cottonwoods
scorched near the Mojave River to the north. Eighty-five horses that Van Berg
left grazing on his property also appeared to have survived the harrowing night
unscathed.

Van Berg credited firefighters who surrounded his ranch and
sprayed his buildings with fire-retardant foam.

"You have to thank the
Lord that he is looking over us the way the fire was raging and rushing through
us," said Van Berg as he fed his horses Wednesday afternoon. And, he said, "You
have to give credit to the boys who came to protect us."

Ventura/Los
Angeles

In northern Los Angeles County, wind-whipped flames
threatened -- but appeared to be sparing -- about 150 homes hugging the Golden
State Freeway just outside the Santa Clarita city limits.

Firefighters
pounced on the advancing wall of fire at the Stevenson Ranch subdivision with
waiting hose lines, halting flames within yards of recently built homes in the
affluent neighborhood.

The flare-up was under control within an hour, as
ridge tops continued to burn in a widening semicircle through the hilly
area.

Fire teams were plagued all afternoon and evening by wind-borne
embers that ignited several brush fires next to Interstate 5, only a stone's
throw from large subdivisions within the Santa Clarita city limits.

Wind
gusts of up to 20 mph actually helped, said Battalion Chief Bob Trowbridge of
the Burbank Fire Department, because they blew the flames away from
homes.

In a sign that things may be returning to normal, the Red Cross
closed the last of its Simi Valley emergency shelters, at the Rancho Santa
Susana community center. Since it opened on Saturday, the Red Cross had housed
139 people and served more than 4,000 meals, spokeswoman Cecilia Cuevas
said.

Now the Red Cross will shift its efforts to providing clothing and
money to fire victims.

"This is where the hard work begins," Cuevas said.
"This is when we really provide direct outreach."

Meanwhile, crews
battling a dogged 56,000-acre fire in the Los Padres National Forest said
southerly winds were helping push the fire away from the towns of Fillmore and
Piru. However, 400 homes on the edges of those towns were still considered
threatened, and firefighters were still fighting the blaze.

To add to the
jitters induced by fire in recent days, Simi Valley and San Fernando Valley
residents experienced three minor earthquakes Wednesday. There were no reports
of damage from the temblors, which ranged in magnitude from 2.8 to 3.6, in the
mild-to-moderate range.